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ABB

The client was experiencing a long turnaround time to research the correct replacement parts for its customers. The result was lost revenue and clients.

This organization manufactured and installed industrial power plants such as boilers and steam generators. The parts listing were kept on a paper bill of material (BOM). Some of these BOMs were 60-years-old and recorded in over 100 formats, handwritten, and on various types of paper stock and color. When a client called for a replacement part, a service representative had to sort through warehouse files looking for the correct BOM. This took 7-10 days, and caused clients to buy replacement parts from competitors.

The company developed an enterprise-wide parts management system. When a client called, a service representative needed to instantaneously query the BOM data by line item and view an image of the original BOM.


ILM Solution

ILM designed a system to categorize the BOMs by their different formats by scanning the documents and enhancing the images for view ability. The handwritten line item data was converted into a searchable index.

Results

The benefits of automated vs manual indexing increased revenue by millions of dollars as a result of providing the client with the parts they were seeking. Reduced turn-around time from 7 days to 20 minutes resulting in increased client satisfaction.